Wireless communication environments available to unspecified users have increasingly been provided by installing access points in places such as shopping malls where many people may gather in a crowd, and by sharing service set identifiers (SSIDs) and passwords of the networks to the public. However, the wireless communication networks where SSIDs and passwords are shared by the public have a risk that an unauthorized access point (hereinafter referred to as “AP”) impersonating an authorized AP may be installed by a malicious third party for the purpose of, for example, stealing a user's information and leading the user to malicious websites.
As technologies related to the above, the following first technology is proposed. That is, in the first technology, when the same pieces of identification information are included in beacons from a plurality of APs, a wireless communication device suppresses its connection so that the wireless communication device is not at least automatically connected to an AP in which the signal strength is equal to or lower than a threshold and an AP in which encryption is disabled. Further, the wireless communication device stores a connection history for valid APs, and determines that an AP is valid when identification information of the AP is found in the connection history.
Further, the following second technology is proposed. That is, in the second technology, a communication device generates a random number, transmits the generated random number to an AP, receives a random number transmitted after predetermined processing is performed in the AP, and determines whether the AP is valid based on the random number received from the AP.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-72402 and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2015-226267 are examples of related art.